Y'all already know about this, right?

Because free food is a Very Good Thing.

Overheard last week

Me: I am so sorry that I didn't make you any Special K bars today, but I was out of peanut butter.
Michael (solemnly): Thank you.
Me (puzzled): Thank me for what? For not making you a surprise when I wanted to?
Michael: Thank you for not making something when you didn't have all the ingredients. For not saying, 'Oh, peanut butter? I'm sure jelly would work just as well.'

This isn't much of an exaggeration, either. I just typed up a recipe for something I made, in which I realised that '1 cup water' was the only ingredient I actually followed.

Coupon craze

I have never been one for coupons. I read accounts of ladies who clip coupons vigilantly, matching coupons with sales prices each week and saving hundreds of dollars, and my response is one of admiration and amusement. ('It only takes me 30-45 minutes a week to read the fliers and clip the coupons, and I can do it while I watch TV!' Yes, but I don't watch TV. So there you have it.) That is way too calculating and mathematical for my taste.

Then I started noticing that our Kroger doubles coupons up to $0.50. Interesting. We do get the paper, which is just full of coupons on Sunday mornings, despite our not having paid any subscription dues for the four years we've lived here. Convenient. I started spotting items on sale for a dollar, and thinking to myself that if only I had a $0.50 coupon for it, it'd be free!

So, here and there, I started clipping a coupon or two, only if it looked interesting and only if it was something that looked as if it might go on sale at some point. I was determined not to let coupons trick me into buying something I did not need, or into paying more for a name brand item than the store brand item would have been. I kept the small handful of coupons in my wallet, checked every so often to weed out the expired ones, and bought a few items here and there when it was a good bargain. (Hello, Chex mix!) But that was all extremely superficial, unstudied, haphazard, and didn't really affect our grocery budget.

But all that changed recently, when I discovered a treasure trove. A veritable treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' she said, 'you have given me a treasure.'

I am now an avid coupon fiend, the kind who hits up friends on Sunday mornings to ask if they are done with their Sunday paper and may I please have the coupons, the kind who walks over to the neighbors' porch under the ostensible excuse of delivering a plate of cookies, having thoughtfully picked up the paper on the way up the driveway, and casually asking if you'd mind sparing the coupon section, the kind who asks her eye-rolling husband to ask all the other guys in the carpool if they wouldn't mind sharing their coupons, because they really weren't going to use them anyway, were they?

Two weeks of dabbling, and I've gotten:

Stocks and stores of medical supplies, the receipts for which will help drain our FSA
Enough toothpaste to last the year out
Diapers and more diapers
One half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream!!! (And at $5.99, you have to know that was a splurge)
Any amount of Useful Things such as disposable pans, dark chocolates, and the like

No, I am not in over my head. I started this all with a $25 gift card, so I know I haven't wasted any real money. This is so fun. And I thought I was good at bargains before now! Ha, what did I know then?

Grace and salt

Recently I read a blog post on a topic of great interest (well, at least to me). One commenter asked an open-ended question, seeking for advice. Another commenter weighed in with her opinion. I felt that I had something to say on the topic, so I posted my two cents' worth, being careful to lace my post with disclaimers, non-universal principles, and 'but that's just me' comments. All of this exchange was very gracious and non-confrontational. I felt that I had contributed something worthwhile to the discussion - especially since the original comment solicited feedback - and preserved a spirit of friendliness and positive encouragement.

Later on, I checked back on the thread, and found a comment from someone who seemed to be pretty obviously directing a rebuttal at my comment. She disagreed with my opinion, insisted on her right to defend her position, and made a general remark against arrogance and speaking to situations about which we knew nothing.

I was floored. I thought my comment was as passive, tolerant, nonjudgmental, and personable as it could have been. Furthermore, I would have thought, before I read this comment, that my comment expressed my true stance on the matter, through and through: I can't give a decisive answer on the topic, because that's for your conscience, but here's what I believe and why. Hope that helps.

Suddenly confronted with a challenge and attack, I find that I'm not nearly so laissez-faire as all that. I'm struck with the profound rightness of my original position. When disagreed with so belligerently and stridently, it makes me want to go back and re-hash more thoroughly my stance on the topic, such that I can either correct my misinformation and change my views, or staunchly defend them. If there's going to be an argument (not a spat, but a debate), then I want to be on the right side of it. And furthermore, I want to disseminate that correct viewpoint, whichever it may be, so that others are not going to be misled.

It occurred to me that my approach to this kind of discussion boils down to this: I would like to keep this as civil as possible. I respect your right to hold your opinion and I would be happy to agree to disagree. But if you are going to make an issue out of it, then I will man the defenses with all flags flying and leave no stone unturned in my quest for truth. If you challenge me, then I will answer the challenge to the best of my ability, and hopefully we will both learn something from the exchange. Hopefully everyone else will, too.

But that attitude rather collides with my original overtures of graciousness and non-confrontation. If I go and enter the fray, then I'm going to come across as argumentative, defensive, and uncompassionate. Which is a pity, because being accurate, logical, coolly reasoning, and truthful shouldn't have to negate kindness of heart.

When people hear something they don't like to hear, it's easy to squawk about how we need to speak the truth in love. I agree. I'm all for that. But there's a difference between speaking to a person, and speaking to a principle. When addressing a specific person, of course we have to speak in love. (Like finding a tactful way to say, 'You need to lose weight.' Or not!) When addressing a principle, we need to focus on speaking the truth. (Like saying, 'Murder is wrong.' Not getting overly concerned with being all nicey-nice, along the lines of: 'I'm so sorry if this is going to inconvenience any of you, but that just isn't right, and you really must not murder someone. Oh, believe me, I've been there too, and I know how tempting it can feel, but please just trust God on this one.')

Just Jane

Jane is still learning the art of conversation. Questions seem a bit difficult for her. 'No' she learned long ago, of course, but she doesn't know that you can just say 'Yes' as a shortcut to repeating the question. If I ask her, 'Would you like some yogurt, Jane?' she will gleefully proclaim, 'Like some yogurt, Jane?' and run to the kitchen to await the payoff.

She also uses questions in place of dialogue. Often, she'll bring up a topic by telling me, 'Would you like a cookie, Jane?' or 'Would you like to draw, Jane?' Like Lady Catherine, she doesn't seem to have a problem both asking and answering all her own questions.

Recently we stopped by the bank, where a very nice teller gave Jane a plastic piggy bank. Jane was fascinated by it. At one point I was in the kitchen with Ella, and heard Jane start crying. I came running, and began asking questions to ascertain what was wrong. Jane sobbed, 'Did you bite piggy's ear, Jane?' Hmm, I never would have thought to ask that one.


Her imagination is vivid and varied. She will hold any toy up to her eyes, pretend to click, and say, 'Take a picture!' Sometimes she'll instruct me to say cheese. She'll tell Ella, too, and never seems to mind that Ella doesn't follow her instructions. Her conversations with Ella are really quite amusing.


I began correcting her pronunciation a few weeks ago, and now she runs riot with it. She will say a word, any word, even a word that she was going to pronounce correctly anyway, and add how not to pronounce it. A common exchange:

Jane: Put on the yellow pajamas.
Mama: Yes, I'll help you put those on. Bring them to me.
Jane: Not yewwow.
Mama: No, not yewwow. Yellow.
Jane: Not lellow.
Mama: No, not lellow.
Jane: Not wellow.

And so it goes. Practically everything she says has to be followed up with a disclaimer now.

She loves hairbows and ponytails. She still wears socks on her hands and calls them gloves. She loves to get dressed up, and goes hunting in her dresser for new clothes to try on. Every time I put a new dress on her, I give her the old one to put away, and she'll come running back with another one that caught her fancy. She is all girl, this one.

Lying low

It tried to be a busy week for us, but I think we have outsmarted it at last. Ella developed a sniffle last week, which I hoped might be related to teething, but she came down with a cough over the weekend and then Jane began to sniffle and sneeze. So we stayed home from church last night and from play group this morning, and oh my word this week is dragging on forever. Michael went to choir as usual, so yesterday was one long day of holding fragile children and wiping runny noses.

I think I'm a better mother when they're sick, though. It forces me to be attentive to them (none of that 'You sit in your high chair and draw while I check email really quick...hmmm...what's that Jane....yes you're right....mmm...I'll be right there...okay, you can spill your water WAIT! DON'T spill your water!-'), and somehow when they do go down for naps I feel more motivated to bustle about briskly and catch up on chores. Well, things get so untidy when there's sickness in the house that the tasks seem obvious and simple. It takes just a minute to run through the rooms collecting all the crumpled tissues, for instance.

So. Now they're down, both humidifiers are running full blast, the breakfast dishes are done, and I am not going to spend any more time on the computer but go curl up with a good book. Well, just as soon as I check email.

Sisters

Ye Have Heard That It Hath Been Said....Or, De-bunking Institute Myths

Although I make the occasional satirical reference to my Institute upbringing, I don't really feel all that scarred. I know there are some people out there who feel rather messed up by various incorrect teachings, but I've felt that I tend to be able to appreciate the good stuff and laugh off the parts I don't agree with.

It distresses me the least little bit, therefore, that there seem to be so few people who hold as ambivalent a viewpoint as I do. There are those who are still caught up in the New Approach To Life such that they whole-heartedly champion all the propaganda, and then there are those whose aversion to the teachings has caused such a backlash that they throw the baby out with the bathwater. It becomes difficult to find a rational way of separating the wheat from the chaff, because any such conversation between interested parties would inevitably deteriorate.

The world, of course, would only scoff and sneer. The disenchanted would wax sarcastic. The naive would go on insisting the merits of all that they had been taught. So who can tell me, plainly, scientifically, scripturally, and with no ulterior motives, the truth value of the following statements?

Having many children is good for the body and keeps a woman looking/acting/feeling younger.

I've heard this one so many times, both anecdotally - in reference to specific poster mothers of large families, who certainly looked vibrant, healthy, and happy - and prescriptively: childbearing was God's design for a woman's body, prolonged barrenness is unhealthy and unnatural, multiple pregnancies deliver necessary doses of estrogen and prolong youthfulness, etc. etc.

I don't want to accept the world's line that pregnancy is hard on the body, because right now we live in a culture of death, and Satan hates the idea of a godly generation. After all, right now, it is accepted practise in mainstream medicine to perform abortions, and we know that is not right. So I'm not just accepting mainstream medicine's take on this one.

On the other hand, I've gone through two pregnancies, and I certainly didn't feel youthful and energised by them. While I'm all right health-wise, I definitely feel aged and worn out by them, and I think that if you could split into a parallel universe and take my current self, as is, and place her side by side with my current self, had I never gotten married and had kids, and compare the two, you would find the other specimen to appear more youthful, energetic, and possibly more put-together and beautiful. (Definitely smoother skin and better belly muscles.) But that's just my top-of-the-head opinion at the end of a very long day. There's really no way to scientifically measure the long-term effect of child-bearing on any given person.

When pulled over by a cop, don't protest your innocence. Instead, cheerfully admit to wrongdoing and sincerely thank him for correcting you. This will properly affirm the authority structure ordained by God, and will likely diffuse the situation entirely.

However, in Real Life, I've read the solid-sounding advice that you are best served by not admitting to guilt, and contesting the ticket. Agreeing that you are in error, or cheerfully volunteering what traffic law you violated, will only seal your fate. On the other hand, we should certainly tell the truth, right? That means not lying if asked whether we were speeding, right?

When eating out in a restaurant, well-behaved children should attract the attention of observant fellow diners, who will approach you at the end of their meal and tell you that they were so impressed with your children that they felt compelled to pay your bill.

This one is largely anecdotal - they don't actually promise it will happen to you, but it seemed to have happened to so many prominent families who go on to share their testimonies about it at Knoxville that you might think it should happen to everyone. It doesn't. I myself have been well-behaved a number of times in restaurants, and nobody has ever paid my bill on that account. Nor have I ever personally met anyone to whom this has happened.

Sleep gotten before midnight is more healthy for your body. Early rising is a Christian virtue.

Now, how is your body supposed to know what time it is by the clock? And how does it somehow manage to adjust to daylight savings time? Really, I think that the most that can be said for this is to make sure you get plenty of sleep, and to try to make it as dark (i.e. restful, peaceful) as possible while you're at it.

Full circle

In my early teens, I began wearing lipstick, but it was a rare tube that survived the plundering hordes of little brothers that thronged the house. Usually I would end up throwing away a half-eaten tube every few months or so, which was good, because it was probably past the expiration date anyway.

By about the time that the youngest brother was outgrowing the chewing-on-all-things-brightly-coloured and poaching-on-forbidden-territory stage, I moved out of the home anyway, so it became a moot point. For once in my life I began finishing my lipsticks, and I finally got to put to practical use those helpful tips about using toothpicks to finish out the tube and not let a single bit go to waste.

Last week in the store, I was pushing the cart haphazardly down the aisle, unmindful of the fact that my purse lay unprotected within easy reach of midget fingers, distractedly scanning the shelves for I know not what, when out of my fog of concentration I heard a little voice chirping, 'Jane is pretty!' I looked down, and saw my little angel holding my tube of lipstick open in her hands, her mouth, lips, and teeth liberally besmeared with pinkish goo. She was so pleased with herself for knowing what lipstick was for, and so happy at the thought that she looked just like Mama, that I didn't bother to disillusion her. And so it begins.